Beast From The East - generalization of the research work concerning the survey of the ethnography of Ukrainian Carpathians.

Beast From the East project essentially based on two different approaches which I used in the process of my artistic practices and researches.

The first - the study of text codes. The text goes into the vision. It results in almost literal illustration of plots based on the study of spiritual text narratives recorded by ethnography researchers more than 100 years ago. The main thing is original story and plot, often bizarre, incomprehensible and contradictory. I accompany these narratives with illustrations and visualizations, encouraging both viewer and me understand them. Some of these stories are original and local others are based on archetypical motives that can be traced far beyond the boundaries of the Carpathians.

The other approach is the study of character and state. Traditional Christmas costume performance, which is of a performative nature and limited in time and space, is taken as the basis. Ignoring the traditional plot, I focus on behavior, movements, emotional state. Suit, mask, attributes, sound are elements that promote deepening into a certain state.

Today it is hard and practically impossible to perceive these statements and beliefs as part of our reality. However, studying this topic in more detail you can find a coherent and autonomous picture of the universe, which has been a certain internal reflection of the surrounding reality for a large group of people not so long ago.

Although mythological consciousness is not present today in its pure form, its fragments are imprinted in collective memory and affect the society and its latent transformations.